Bass 8: Diary 2

Five string 50's inspired P bass

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I've not built a P bass yet, which is a suprise considering a P/MM was my first bass. While I was considering this, I thought that if' I'm going to build a P bass...then I might as well go right back to the very beginning of the electric bass guitar and draw some inspiration from the bass that started it all. That menas that the primary pickup needs to be a single coil P bass PU. Probably hand wound for me by either Kent, Arron or Nordstrand and it needs to be a noiseless PU. The question is which other pickup do I pair with it. It's a bass that is intended for flat wound strings for that 50's sound and although it's a 5 string it'll have a high C and not a low B. Low B flats sound pretty bad to my ears. I'll probably make the string spacing quite wide, either 18 or 19mm at the bridge. I like the idea of a MM in the bridge placement. That Pick up with with a coil tap switch will offer a range of P/MM/J sounds and be really neat looking. The other idea is for a pair of J's either side of the single coil P. That would full fill two specific bass roles rather well. I could go even wilder and fit a MM and a single Jazz. Or I could try and break with traditional spacing and fit a pair of J's, a split P and a single coil P, but that might be pushing it a bit too far.

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Marking out the neck billet cut using packing tape

As this is a bolt on neck, It's using a lot less of the billet that an all through neck would use

I can easily get another bolt on neck or all though headless out of the remainder

My bandsaw isn't the best around, however, it's great for heavy rip cuts like this

And that's the bolt on neck billet

I hand planed this billet flat

Routing out the Truss rod chennel using a maple template I cut earlier. This slot is oversized to that when I use a template collet and the right bit...I can cut a super accurate slot in about 5-6 passes

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